Working the NIGHT SHIFT: Biology is not Destiny, The Supernatural Lessons of Lost Girl

There is a good reason I have chosen October 25 as the date for this post. It marks the series finale of Lost Girl on this day in 2015. One might expect me to go with the premiere anniversary for something like this, but the finale feels more appropriate for what I want to talk about here. 

For one thing, by the time Lost Girl was over, we had a clear view of what Bo had put behind her and what she had achieved. 

Lost Girl (2010-2015)

Bo, Anna Silk’s character in Lost Girl, discovers she is a succubus and that there is a whole supernatural world she was never aware of. More to the point, she finds that this world has its own set of rules as to who you are to be, who you are to keep company with, and which side you have to pick. She is forced to choose.

Bo’s response to all of that is a resounding "No."

And that is the most valuable thing the show offered me.

The Fae that inhabit the world of Lost Girl are not a single species. The term does not denote a single type of creature. They may hail from different mythologies, have powers that are worlds apart, or act in entirely different fashions. The only commonality is their place in the larger supernatural ecology. That, and there are two camps: Light and Dark Fae.

Lost Girl ran for 5 seasons, mostly focusing on Bo and human Kenzi, and their ability to move between the Light and Dark worlds of the Fae to investigate crimes in both and in the human world. Along the way, she meets and falls in love with Dyson, a male werewolf and cop, and Lauren, a female human doctor. Bo's bisexuality is a mirror to her ability to move between Light and Dark worlds, and the Fae and human worlds.

Much like Charmed, we developed playtest characters based on Bo and Kenzi. Bo was a good test of the supernatural character type. Kenzi became our de facto human survivor.

Lost Girl and NIGHT SHIFT

I wanted NIGHT SHIFT to be a game where one could play a supernatural character without having to codify every conceivable creature as a distinct species. The Fae in Lost Girl provided an excellent model for that. Two such characters need not resemble one another or even share a mythological pedigree to be of the same broad category. That concept was instrumental in developing the basic Supernatural species for the game.

It is a freedom of design. Rather than making a separate species for every horror movie or urban legend monster, I could put in place a framework that lets the player and Game Master make of the character what they will.

Lost Girl also underlined a notion that has taken on greater significance for me: biology is not destiny.

You will find in some older fantasy games an assumption that an orc is evil by virtue of being an orc, or that a demon is evil because it is a demon; the rules would even put a number on it with alignment. Lost Girl does not see it that way. 

Bo is a succubus by birth. Fine. That says what she can do, not what kind of person she must be. She makes the choice.

As the series goes on, that becomes all the more relevant. Her actions affect those around her. Other characters begin to doubt things they have taken for granted for centuries. Boundaries in the Fae world are crossed. It turns out many of the so-called natural and inevitable rules were just choices made by someone else at some point.

Which is why the finale is a better anniversary for this piece than the premiere. At the outset, Bo is the one insisting on her right to choose. By the end, she has changed the world around her. Even the next generation is afforded the option of deciding for herself what she wants to be, or of flatly refusing the options on the table.

That is a potent concept for a role-playing game. A character’s powers or ancestry may well matter, but they do not have to dictate who he or she is. What is of interest is what is done with them.

Not just great for drama. A necessity for RPGs.

Succubi

Then there is the matter of succubi. Lost Girl has given me plenty of food for thought on the subject.

They are traditionally demons, and I still use them as such, but the show reminds us that this doesn't have to be the whole story. A succubus can also be fae or vampiric (as in the WitchCraft RPG).

I care less for the label than for what the creature actually is in the world it inhabits. Is it feeding on blood or sexual energy? Does it have to cause harm to get by? Or are we calling several unrelated beings by the same name because humans are not adept at telling the difference?

Much more useful than the simple equation of "succubus equals demon equals evil." 

A supernatural being may have instincts or needs that are frightening to a human. Those are fine problems for a story to have. But they do not settle the question of good or evil.

That is for the characters to decide for themselves.

But once you remove the idea that a character has to act or be a certain way, it opens up a world of potential for the characters, the game masters, and the game designers like me.

Lost Girl and Jackson

You can't always see the influences of Lost Girl in my Jackson psts, but it is there, and a good deal of it can be found when you start to dig.

Take Larina, for example. The link is quite direct. During some early playtests, I was looking for something in her past that would account for certain qualities: her temper, or how at ease she has always been with magic of the more dangerous sort. There are magical avenues she will take that would give another witch pause. It is not as though these things make her evil, yet they pointed to something there, I just had not quantified it yet. 

I concluded that a little succubus blood in her lineage would do the trick. Not enough to turn her into one, or define her, but enough to add a dimension to her family history and account for those traits. And maybe that red hair too. 

In that regard, Lost Girl gave me a new perspective. Bo is a succubus, true, but that says only so much about her powers and biology. Who she is, she makes for herself. I wanted the same for Larina. Her demonic side is no excuse for her actions; it does not mean her temper is written in the stars or that dangerous magic is luring her to ruin. She is a witch, a student, a daughter, a friend and, in time, a mother. That is the sort of world I want to build. 

Then there is the matter of the cast. Lost Girl made it obvious to me that a group of women protagonists can be done right in genre fiction. For years, the convention in gaming was to have a room full of men with a woman or two for measure. Lost Girl had none of that. Either hero or villain, lover or rival, the characters were very often female, and it worked. They did not have to stand in for "the woman" of the piece; they could be as foolish as they were brilliant, as cruel as they were compassionate. You will find the same in Emily Andras’ Wynonna Earp. You saw this in Charmed as well. 

Jackson is no different. Larina, Stephanie, Faye, Vera, Rowan, Candy, Denise, Ami, Valerie, Kiera, and the rest are not here to tick a box. Some are witches, some are mundane, some run toward trouble, and some would rather be elsewhere. They are simply the ones with the most compelling stories.

If there is a through line between the two works, I would say it is the opening words from Bo: "I will live the life I choose." That might as well be inscribed over the doors to Jackson Public High School.

Larina will not let her bloodline dictate who she is. Faye is not going to let the hags who reared her have the last word. And while Stephanie has the weight of money, social standing, and family expectations on her shoulders, she will decide for herself who she wants to be. Vera has similar issues with money and family obligation on top of religion and a father who doesn't want his daughter to be a witch. She still has choices to make. Even the more ordinary folk have to make their call.

There is plenty of inherited trouble in Jackson. Old bargains, family histories, the town’s own debts from past generations. But that is not destiny. The characters must choose. It is not easy to do, and there are consequences, which is precisely why the choice is so important.

You can have the power, the history, and the problems handed down to you. But in the end, you have to determine what to do with them. Lost Girl knew that, and I want Jackson to as well.

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NIGHT SHIFT^® is a Registered Trademark of Elf Lair, LLC. Used by Permission.

Working the NIGHT SHIFT: What Charmed Taught Me About Witches

 October 7, 1998 was the premiere of Charmed on The WB. Just seven months after the premiere of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, the show would be most often compared to.  By this point, I had been writing about witches for a decade, but hadn't published anything yet (one more year). But I want to talk about what Charmed taught me about witches, specifically, what Charmed taught me about witches in NIGHT SHIFT.

Charmed (1998 - 2006, 2018-2022)

Charmed was about witches. But this was a different take than other witches on TV. We had Samantha in Bewitched and Sabrina in her own show, which showed that a witch can work well, if comedically, in modern times. Charmed had more to do with the 1996 movie The Craft, including using Love Spit Love's cover of The Smiths' "How Soon Is Now?"

The witches of Charmed were not old hags or evil sorceresses. Nor were they suburban housewives dealing with the magical and mundane worlds. They were three estranged sisters who discovered they were not just witches, but a powerful kind of witch known as The Charmed Ones. Their job was to protect innocents from supernatural threats like warlocks, monsters, and, in particular, demons, all while trying to hold down regular jobs, maintain relationships, and find a way to mend the broken pieces of their own pasts. It was a very different, and honestly a more mature take on how to deal with otherworldly weirdness in a normal world than, say, what Buffy was doing on a different day.

The show began with three sisters: Prue (Shannen Doherty), Piper (Holly Marie Combs), and Phoebe Halliwell (Alyssa Milano). Later on, when Prue is killed, Rose McGowan joined as a younger half-sister, Paige Matthews. The Halliwells lived in San Francisco in a house owned by their Grandmother, Penny "Grams" (Jennifer Rhodes). When Grams dies, their magic comes back. Their mother, Patty (Finola Hughes), had died years before, fighting a demon.

Charmed was not perfect by any stretch. There were some continuity issues. Some of the episodes were goofy. Some were not great. Some were just an excuse to dress the stars in costumes. But the show had heart. I felt that the first three seasons at least tried to be consistent in their world-building, particularly in their magic. For example, the police detective and love interest to Prue, Andy Trudeau (T.W. King) knows about cults and recognizes witchcraft items like an athame (and pronounces it correctly) among other items. As the show moved on, other new ideas were added, like Whitelighters and other types of sabbats. But Charmed was never supposed to be a documentary on Witchcraft. 

I knew Charmed would work as a game world back in 2012 at Gen Con.

I signed up to play in a Buffy RPG game that was a Buffy-Charmed-Supernatural crossover. I had played a lot of Buffy by then (naturally), but I was looking forward to playing a witch. So I picked Piper. Let me tell you, that was a freaking blast. One of the best times I had playing at Gen Con where I was a player and not the GM.

I had also already done my own crossover prior to that.

So when work began on NIGHT SHIFT, I already knew what I wanted.

Charmed and NIGHT SHIFT

Charmed has been with NIGHT SHIFT from the very start. During playtesting, for instance, I used the Charmed Ones as playtest characters. They served a purpose because they were more than just three people who happened to have magic. Each sister brings her own mix of strengths, weaknesses, and personality to the table, yet in combination they are something else entirely. That is what I was after for NIGHT SHIFT.

From this (and many other ideas) came the concept of Arcane Bonds. Power is not always an isolated thing; it can be drawn from the ties between characters, family, friendship, love, or even shared trauma. The Power of Three is the obvious case in point with Charmed, but I was less interested in replicating that particular mechanic than in the wider principle. I wanted a game where a character’s connections made them stronger, rather than just another spell or level-up. It suited my way of writing witches at the time. You can even see the development of the idea in my previous writings.

The Halliwells were formidable, but their magic was inextricably linked to their family history and obligations. Their enemies were often the result of events predating their birth. Their connection to magic and their ancestors were all part of the equation. To me, that is a far better model than a mere spellcaster with a different repertoire.

In NIGHT SHIFT, the structure is similar. The characters lead ordinary lives until the supernatural intrudes, whether they seek it out or it comes through the front door. One has to deal with both.

More than anything, Charmed offered me a new perspective on witches as protagonists. They were not types who stood apart from the world and peered in; they had families and jobs and bills like everyone else, along with the attendant problems. The supernatural was there to complicate those realities, not to put them aside. I would come to value that notion highly. The first setting I dealt with all of this was my "Ordinary World," Night World. Here, supernatural types all have to try to get along to maintain the appearance of normality, lest the "mundanes" find out. 

Charmed and Jackson

With Jackson the influence is perhaps deeper, but not as overt.

Larina, Stephanie, and Faye are not Halliwell imitations; their world is darker, the town is not San Francisco, and their magic is of a different sort. But Charmed gave me license to pursue what I already held to be true for a very long time: that witches can be heroes. Not the kind you have to sanitize, but the ones with their rituals, old books, and unsettling family secrets. There is no need for any of that to make them the villain. Stephanie's family comes from old money and not all of that was "clean money." Larina learns she has some demonic blood in her going back generations. And Faye. Poor girl is being raised by hags, and bits of her soul are being bartered out for more magic. But each one is trying to make the world better than it was before. All while dealing with normal things.

It is right at the heart of Jackson. Larina might spend her day concerned over school or whether Stephanie is mad at her, and then face down whatever has emerged from the Bad Land by nightfall. The two coexist. No. More than that. They are inseparable. 

I was also reminded of the role of family history. The Halliwells not only inherit power but also unfinished business. You will find plenty of that in Jackson. Larina’s abilities are bound to things that transpired long before she was here, and so is the town. Faye's Thorne and Voss heritages come with some serious magical debts. There are old crimes, monsters, and promises in its past. Sometimes the young ones have to put right what their grandparents or some long-dead soul left behind.

Places have a way of mattering too, much like the Halliwell manor. A library can be a repository of dangerous knowledge, a house can be more than four walls, and a town’s history will not always lie buried. Those Devil Chairs in the cemeteries have to mean something. Magical Mystery Lane leads somewhere.

Charmed did not put these ideas in my head, but it demonstrated how well they function in a sustained narrative. Witchcraft does not have to be an escape from life. It can be a part of it.

The Second Charmed

The second Charmed series taught me something different.

When the reboot premiered in 2018, it understandably wanted to inherit many of the things people associated with the original show. There were three sisters (Macy, Mel, and Maggie), the Power of Three, Whitelighters, demons, a Book of Shadows, and all the other pieces we immediately recognized as Charmed.

But having the pieces is not the same thing as building the thing.

Too often, I felt the second series wanted the benefits of the original Charmed without doing all the work that had made those ideas matter in the first place. The Halliwells had years of history, relationships, losses, mistakes, and accumulated mythology behind them. You could not simply reproduce the visible parts and expect the same emotional investment.

Interestingly, I thought the newer Charmed worked best when it stopped trying so hard to be the old Charmed and started becoming its own show. When it developed its own mythology, its own relationships, and its own answers to what witches and magic were, it became much more interesting to me.

That lesson has been extremely useful while developing Jackson.

I cannot just take three witches, drop them into a fictionalized Jacksonville, Illinois, and expect Charmed to happen.

Nor would I want it to.

Jackson has to grow out of Jackson. Its witches need their own histories, relationships, families, enemies, mistakes, and reasons for being there. The supernatural world has to emerge from the place's history and character rather than be imported wholesale from elsewhere.

Influence is useful. Inspiration is essential. But imitation is not world-building.

The things I learned from Charmed can help me understand what makes Larina and her friends work. They cannot tell me who Larina and her friends are. They can't tell me who YOUR characters are.

That part has to come from Jackson.

And that is the part I think is useful for anyone building their own game setting. You can absolutely start with the things you love. Take the family dynamics from one show, the occult atmosphere from another, the monster hunting from somewhere else, and the small-town weirdness from something completely different. But eventually those influences have to become yours.

If I can take all these influences and use them to build Larina, Jackson, Carbon Vale, and Sunny Valley into something with its own identity, then you can do the same with your characters and your world.

The goal is not to recreate the thing that inspired you.

The goal is to discover what it inspires you to create.

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NIGHT SHIFT^® is a Registered Trademark of Elf Lair, LLC. Used by Permission.